


Spread Your Wings and Fly, but what if they are torn?

by hunnyB



Category: RWBY
Genre: Apocalypse, Canon Universe, Day 9, F/F, JanuRWBY, Post-Volume 6 (RWBY), kind of, surprise at the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-13 16:00:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28656108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hunnyB/pseuds/hunnyB
Summary: How I hope RWBY WON'T end.
Relationships: Blake Belladonna & Ruby Rose & Weiss Schnee & Yang Xiao Long, Blake Belladonna/Yang Xiao Long, Lie Ren/Nora Valkyrie, Ruby Rose & Yang Xiao Long, Ruby Rose/Weiss Schnee, They're only mentioned - Relationship
Comments: 4
Kudos: 18





	Spread Your Wings and Fly, but what if they are torn?

_"he seeks freedom, which is so dear to us, as_  
_he knows, who gives his life for it."_

The war has ended. The great evil, Salem, has perished.

And so have our heroes.

Slowly, everyone who had a word in that endless war, lost their lives, whatever it was for a personal cause or for a greater one.

They've been thrown into that battle from the piece they once blindly believed in, and it felt like being catapulted into a totally different galaxy, full of unknown, of dangers. After Beacon, their hearts were broken, a large crack in the middle of the muscle that appeared harmless from afar, when it was actually the superficial cut of a life-threatening wound.

When they had reunited in Haven, and _won_ , they had gained a little bit of faith in the future that waited for them.

Never did they ever commit such a huge mistake.

The first to go were their parents - or of those who still had them -, joining them and shielding their sons and daughters with their own bodies when Grimm overcame them. As if it wasn't enough, Salem had decided to completely demolish the smaller and inexperienced ones who had joined the war against her by taking the life of their tutors, their professors.

Just because they had been able to actually _stop_ her plans, but at what price?

Then it was team CFVY, team SSSN, and all the students that decided to take part in that war far greater than any of them ever thought it to be, leaving the weight of the world on those who still stood. Those were Ruby, Weiss, Blake, Yang, Jaune, Nora, Ren and Oscar.

If before, the thought of a peaceful and happy future for each of them had crossed their mind, it soon vanished along with those who fell. Life itself, now nothing more than unbearable pain and unending conflicts, began to corrode their skin and blood.

They all were part of their own family now, made up of people they _chose_ to be with, people they trusted with their own lives, people they would _die_ for. Every night was spent thinking, and when the stress would become extremely consuming, when it would become too much to bear for whoever of them, they gather in one bed, or even on the floor, and curled all around each other, whispering sweet words like 'we're here' or 'we love you', but never promises.

No one wanted to deceive the other or themselves.

The first of them to go was Jaune, who had bravely fought, until death overcame him, to ensure the others escaped the mass of Grimm they had been locked with inside a big, underground cave.

They had been aware since the first moment that there was no way all eight of them would escape that prison.

The loss had torn everyone apart, more devastating than Pyrrha's in a way, but just as important, and similarly, the pain had turned once again into power, pumping in their bodies like blood.

They will avenge him, they decided, just like they all promised to Pyrrha.

And so, they went on.

New Grimm came to them, fiercer and stronger, until the deadly battle with an insanely gruesome creature they would have never dreamed to meet, not even in their worst nightmares, took from them Ren and Nora too, who had decided to stay behind and go down together.

That was how team JNPR ended.

Team RWBY - along with a scarred grown-up Oscar - stopped functioning for weeks, probably several months passed before they were able to go back on their feet, and no more smiles have ever crossed their faces since then.

Whoever met them stepped away or turned around, too terrified to even lock eyes; but those who would dare, those who had the audacity or curiosity to meet their gazes would fall under the intensity of lifeless eyes and burning souls that could tell alone the story none of them were able to narrate.

It was too much.

One day they visited Atlas and decided - yes, _they_ took that decision because General Ironwood was gone and his seat had been occupied by a man who knew nothing about the _truth_ \- that it was time to inform the world. It of course caused panic to spread all around Remnant, but their warning had given people enough time to digest the news and come to terms with it. More or less.

Learning about that story brought the kingdom to take a decision, one that team RWBY wasn't sure to be grateful for: all the members of Team JNPR became martyrs, worshipped more than any gods humans believed in, treated like the heroes that lost everything because they had _preferred -_ so people would tell - to sacrifice themselves for a greater good.

But that wasn't true. They never _wanted_ to.

When their respective moments came, the awareness of what was about to come, of how their life was on the line, outlined the genuine look of fear and dread their eyes almost hide behind a 'good-luck-and-I'm-sorry' mask which could be read by none other than the eight of them - or what remained of them. It was their way to apologize in advance for leaving them with too much pain to handle, too much weight to support by themselves, but it was also to entrust them with the future and give them courage.

Their actions inspired the still-existing schools, the other Huntsmen and Huntresses around the world, and now that everyone knew about Salem, the world, and its origins... things felt different.

The five of them - Oscar with his tortured to death body, Ruby with her only left eye from Tyrian's revenge, Weiss with a large burnt in her belly and Blake with her matching one in her cat ear as White Fang's courtesy, and Yang with the multitude of scars in her back from every fight spent crouched over her ~~teammates~~ family's body to shield them from paws and claws when there were too many of them, almost crossing the line of death once too many times until Ruby begged her to _stop because losing her too would have been too much, something impossible to move on from!_

And so they moved forward - more like they pushed each other forward, fighting, bleeding, crying, and then standing up in a daily routine that was imprinted on their skins, on their _bones_ \- until the day Salem personally led an attack against them because she was tired of the failures, enraged to hear the same names of those at fault repeated to her like a mantra.

That time, Ozpin and Oscar's linked souls combined in a single one, and they _won_ because their headmaster succeeded in killing the few pawns Salem had left after Emerald and Mercury defected, Hazel dying close behind as a consequence of helping them escape.

Once again a bitter victory, because they had lost another friend.

Cinder had managed to survive until the end, but her never-ending lust for power cost her the loss of her life in none other than team RWBY's hands.

Whatever it was destiny or the fact that they were the last Huntresses of that generation to fight on the front-row, the four of them ended up having the four Maiden's powers: Yang had already obtained Spring after Raven's death; Weiss came second, as she inherited the Winter powers after her own sister entrusted her with them on her dying wish; then Ruby, who obtained Summer only because the precedent wielder trusted the child more than the one who had injured her deadly; and finally Blake, who acquired Fall from Cinder once she had taken her off guard and killed her fast enough for the older to not be able to shut down her thoughts about the Faunus and stop her full powers from transferring to her.

They were strong together because they were each other's everything, and that magic brought them closer in a somehow mystic and immaterial way, as if the deepest part of them, their souls, were linked together by a force greater than everything they had ever seen or felt.

But once again, they were reminded how cruel life was.

Once they had all acquired their powers, it was important to note that if they ever found themselves in life-threatening situations, their thoughts were to stay on one of the other three so that the power could not escape in dangerous hands... but they had subconsciously agreed on the futility of specifying it because Ruby, Weiss, Blake, and Yang were _always_ in each other's thought.

So you can not blame Yang for sending a whole damn forest on fire when she felt that familiar surge of power hit her body, more painful and devastating than everything else she has ever experienced in her life. And as soon as it entered her, she _knew_ who it was from.

Blake had a peaceful expression when they found her in the middle of a burnt forest, but no flame had touched her body, as if obeying Yang's silent request.

After drowning in pure rage and sorrow for weeks, entire days spent thinking about what _could have been_ , thinking about how the pure flame warming her heart had been extinguished in favor of a fire more powerful but not brighter than the precedent one, Yang decided she could not shut down because she still had Ruby and Weiss to take care of.

And so, just like they always did, they moved on.

They pushed what was left of their bodies forward until they faced Salem again, until they discovered that although she could use it, she was vulnerable to magic. They fought until they witnessed it, until they saw her _fail_ and reveal her weakness in full view, until... until another flame went off.

For her family, the terms that better represented Weiss had always been cautious warmth and white, but when she fell in their arms, she was cold and red.

Now, Ruby thought, she truly understood what her sister felt when Blake, her partner, died: the feeling was pure _agony_ , worse than any eternal damnation, something like when you're in apnea and your chest burns so much but you can't do anything about it and keep suffering, or like a hand that tears your heart out of your chest, or a fire that consumes your soul endlessly. Ruby felt the Winter powers mingle with her Summer ones in her core while her eyes witnessed Weiss exhale her last breath and her lips curl upward in a smile.

_That smile._

_Was it to give them faith? Was it because they had finally found piece in the Afterlife?_

Ruby and Yang didn't know the answer, but they screamed until their brain, heart, and hands ached for nothing but _revenge._ They killed the past two-hundred Grimm that had gathered around them, drawn by either their strong negative emotions or their screams. Their bodies were driven by an endless amount of energy pumping in their system, fed by the entangled mix of emotions pulsing through their veins like blood. They yelled until they ended up with their knees on the dirt, nothing but blood and clouds of dark smoke surrounding them.

That night, Ruby and Yang held each other close, Ruby rolled up against Yang's taller and larger body with her head on the crook of her neck and her legs curled up against her own chest in a tight ball, and Yang acting like a second blanket on her younger sister, her legs over the smaller ones and her arms pushing Ruby impossibly close to her.

It could have been mistaken by their positions, but it wasn't Yang comforting Ruby. The two sisters were comforting each other with the knowledge that they were all that was left, that just like they grew up together, haunted by loneliness, they returned to that same point, but were also as far from it as they could be: they were not in their peaceful home in Patch, long destroyed, but at the end of the world, where a step too off would have brought down the entire world with them.

The feeling was like being the only two people left in the entire kingdom.

This time, they didn't have much time to process things. Salem was close, and all they did was rest and recharge for two whole days to prepare themselves for what was to come, what should have been the final battle.

And final it was.

Ruby and Yang occupied the first-row, accompanied close behind by headmasters, professors, and their newly deployed army of students in training - other sacrifices, they thought -, and tons of warriors ready to give up their lives for the _greater good_.

Ruby and Yang were not.

But it didn't matter, the world has never listened to them and it won't surely start now... that, at least, was clear.

Many died, thousands of thousands of people, both warriors and civilians, trying to make their way through endless Grimm, and Ruby and Yang ended up facing a livid Salem alone, her once white hair turned dark and her bloody eyes red like the veins scarring a great portion of her pale body.

They fought Grimm over Grimm for hours, trying to reach the woman in any way they could whenever she would create new hordes of monsters. Once they managed to advance and get closer to Salem, Ruby trapped her thanks to her evolved Semblance and Yang attacked her with her Maiden Powers, injuring her to the level that she would have needed time to recharge since it was a _magic_ injury.

That was the big gap for them.

Since Beacon and many other catastrophic events that followed, Ruby's optimistic side died completely, and she set for never underestimating _anything_ until the end, until it was _gone_ , no matter how easy it could seem.

Ruby never dared to feel the slightest bit hopeful about their triumph on this last mission that would have found its once-and-for-all end only with Salem's death, but... she could still not recall how that happened, how those few seconds had passed so fast not even _she_ had noticed, how the last pieces of her heart had crumbled back there, in that blood-soaked and gloomy wasteland.

The minute before it was her and Yang against Salem, and the other... a piercing scream accompanied by a strong wave of power that made her lose her balance and the other Grimm vanish in smoke, a familiarly stinging smell, and something splattering on her face at a disgusting speed.

When her shaking silver eye opened, it landed directly on Yang and on the growing pool of blood forming on her clothes and on the ground right before her.

She has never seen blood flow so fast in her life.

She clutched her older sister's weak body in her arms, Yang muttering to her that she loved her, that she has always trusted her more than anyone else, and that she would be looking after her from far away, along with everyone else. She repeated to her how proud Ruby made her, and how sorry she felt for not being able to be with her until the very end, just like they promised.

Ruby had cried loudly and barely breathed the whole time, listening to her sister with her heart hammering in her chest and her mind full of words and things to say, full of apologies and gratitude. When she felt Yang grow terribly heavy on her, she mustered her energies and managed a choked 'i love you' from her constricted throat before witnessing her older sister's lilac eyes vanish under her eyelids and her lips curl upward like Blake and Weiss' had.

While she cried, a flame erupted from the blonde's chest and launched itself straight to Ruby, causing an overwhelming sensation inside her body to awake.

Ruby rose and suddenly her left eye was surrounded by a fiery glow that matched all her teammates' colors, her body healing itself and all her energies coming back at her as if she has just been reborn. Even though the raw rage and blinding fury were behind everything else she had ever proved, she felt from deep inside her core a warm feeling of calmness and stability that kept her steady and concentrated.

A whisper.

The power flowing in her veins at that exact moment was so insanely _intense_ that no Grimm dared meet her path, both for the dreadful aura she exuded and the magic windstorm surrounding her body like a shield.

When she found herself standing over Salem's decaying body, her mind was clear as it has never been: the power was corroding her body wholly, corrupting her pale skin and her blood as if the magic itself had turned into a deadly illness.

The land she stood on was joyless, the colors heavy and the setting withering, but at that moment, as if the world felt now lighter with its greatest danger's awaited absence, the sun rose from the line of the earth with a content sigh, and the thick air still heavy with dust began to dissipate under the piercing sun rays.

Ruby felt relatively calm as she breathed out a pained sigh and pushed herself up as best as she could. During her last fight her body had been on fire, heavy with raw emotions and scorching power... but now, as the sun calmy kissed her face and the sounds around her became indiscernible to her ears, the only feeling left was extreme tiredness, like every cell of her body was disintegrating and her body was going to crumble into pieces.

Before it could, though, Ruby pushed herself up and looked around, noticing how her vision was getting blurrier and her breath heavier with every passing second. Not too many wondering steps after, as if her very soul was leading her, she fell on her knees and curled closer to her sister's lifeless body.

She was too tired to mind the blood against her skin and its nauseous smell, too tired to think anything else than to last be with the person who had made her feel so loved and welcomed for her entire life.

And how it felt strange to have reached the end of her life.

Not once in her life, Ruby had cared to busy herself thinking about death. She knew it would have come for her sooner than for any ordinary citizen, but she never let her mind wander to how it would feel like. But now that the moment had come, now that she _was_ dying... Her limbs felt numb, her mind empty and tired, her soul too heavy for her body, but she also couldn't deny that it made her feel lighter, like all the weight of the world had been thrown off her shoulders.

Was this how they felt? Weiss, Blake and Yang?

Ruby had never understood what brought them to smile in that circumstance, but now that she could feel her body and mind relax, all her fears crumble as if they had never existed in the first place... She found her lips curl up in a smile before she could even register it.

Her voice was long gone at that point, but before her eyes could shut down and her lungs succumb to her final breath, she whispered something and did what she had never dared to do to not give in false hope.

She made a promise.

She promised they would be together from there on...

When Ruby opened her eyes again, she was expecting to see— well, she wasn't expecting to see anything at all. But surely the last thing she had in mind was a bright and warm place enveloping her body like a mom's embrace would, making her feel welcomed, at _home_.

Her senses were weary and her mind dizzy with confusion and bewilderment, but she _did_ feel it.

She did feel strong, extremely warm arms wrap around her waist and push her against a solid chest.

Ruby gasped and basked in the sensation with no hesitation, tears welling up in her silver eyes - she was so little aware of this new reality, that she didn't notice she could see with both.

Still, she could be blindfolded and recognize anyway the warm embrace of her older sister, her taller and more pronounced body pressed against her tiny one in what would have usually resulted as a slightly uncomfortable hug and her consequential pulling away.

But that was _usually_.

And usually didn't include the eventuality of hugging after she had witnessed _her -_ all of them - die.

After she spent the last ten years of her life losing friends and loved ones.

After she had wanted to evade for so long the prison her life had become and search for a true _home_ , something Yang always smelled of.

"It's okay" the blonde gently breathes in her ear, her soft hands caressing from her back to up between her shoulders and curling between her now longer dark strands. From her position in her sister's hold, Ruby can see— no, actually, she strangely _senses_ someone approaching the two of them, but it gives her nothing but pleasant and friendly vibes. "We're all here with you."

Ruby pushes herself back and gasps as she recognizes each face that now surrounds her. The tears she doesn't even bother to hold stream down her face and stain her cheeks and clothes, and as she glances once again at her sister's face - her wet violet eyes are fixed on hers unwavering, like Ruby means the world and its the only thing she ever cared about there _and_ here - she swims in nothing but pure love and fondness.

She looks around and spots the same expression reflected in her friends' faces.

Weiss and Blake step closer, occupying each side and wrapping their arms around both sisters.

Ruby sobs heavily as she relishes in her team's love for a few seconds, gasping 'I'm sorry', 'I missed you', 'You're the best' until she repeats them over and over again and squeezes them tightly as to never let go. Once she has calmed down, she raises her hands up and gestures to everyone else to join the hug, blindly wrapping her arms around bodies and feeling their hands returns the gesture with just as much strength and emotion.

She squeezes them tightly and they squeeze back just as fiercely, and Ruby is so happy she curls more against Yang's toned body, burying her smiling face in the crook of her neck and letting the tears pour down like heavy rain after dry weeks of sun - and soak her sister's jacket.

Since they committed their lives to become Huntsmen and Huntresses and witnessed the world's cruelty, happiness has always been difficult to grasp, freedom difficult to find. But now that she had turned her back to the terrible world they had lived in and that jailed them into an endless, bloody conflict, now that they could all be together once again, Ruby felt as happy and free as she has never been.

The war has ended. The great evil, Salem, has perished.

And so have our heroes.

**Author's Note:**

> I was already writing this fic when I read about the event 'januRWBY', so I decided to publish it in the day with the closest prompt. In this case, the 9th with 'Apocalypse'.  
> Thank you for reading!  
> Follow me on twitter (@FirecrackerKoG) for constant RWBY's updates and Fanfiction! 
> 
> The quote is from the 'Divine Comedy', Purgatorio Canto I, v. 71-2. Translation by A.S.Kline.


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